UPDATE - 3 weeks into Mosul op, Iraqi forces take more ground

*UPDATES WITH ARMY’S PROXIMITY TO MOSUL AIRPORT

By Ali Shikho, Ahmed Qassim and Ali Jawwad

BAGHDAD (AA) – The Iraqi army and its allies on Monday continued to make gains in and around Daesh-held Mosul amid an ongoing campaign -- now in its fourth week -- to purge members of the terrorist group from Iraq’s second-largest city.

In a statement, General Abdulamir Rashid Yarullah, head of the army's Nineveh Operations Command, announced that Iraqi forces had captured three villages to Mosul’s southwest and another village and district to the north of the city.

The general added that two Daesh commanders had been killed to the city’s south and east, while Iraqi forces southeast of Mosul had captured a tank and a large weapons cache from the militants.

According to Colonel Ahmed al-Jubouri, an officer in the Nineveh Operations Command, Iraqi forces now stand some 14 kilometers from Mosul’s international airport.

"After capturing the village of Al-Zefteyya, Iraqi forces are now about 14 kilometers from the airport from the direction of Mosul’s southern Hammam al-Alil area," al-Jubouri told Anadolu Agency.

On Saturday, the army announced the recapture of Hammam al-Alil, one of Daesh’s last strongholds south of Mosul, soon after storming it.

On Oct. 18, the army, backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, launched a wide-ranging operation aimed at retaking Mosul, which Daesh overran -- along with additional territory in northern and western Iraq -- in mid-2014.

Recent months have seen the Iraqi army retake much territory, especially on the outskirts of Mosul -- regional capital of Iraq’s northern Nineveh province -- and in the western province of Anbar.

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), more than 22,000 people have been displaced since the Mosul campaign began three weeks ago.